


mochi

by Crollalanza



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fights, Gen, Minor Blood Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26341072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crollalanza/pseuds/Crollalanza
Summary: It had not been the worst fight they’d had. Not physically. But it signified a break in their connection. For how could Atsumu not have seen this was coming?
Relationships: Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu
Comments: 12
Kudos: 118





	mochi

**Author's Note:**

> This has been written for Setter/Spiker week. I decided on the Miyas for this prompt of 'struggle'.

The fight had not been the worst that they’d had. There were no cuts and bruises. No black eyes. No stitches needed or plasters to be attached. The coach hadn’t been called, and neither Gin nor Suna had had to step in to separate them. After the outburst, when Osamu had finally got his point across and in such a way that Atsumu couldn’t do anything else but listen, they’d shoved each other away and stomped off in different directions.

Atsumu sat in his bedroom, bag unpacked despite the homework he had to finish that night, and stared at his hands.

Setters’ hands.

_How could he not want to hit my toss?_

There was a hangnail on his thumb. One he should clip. And a callus forming on his index finger. It didn’t hurt, but he should smooth it away, get rid of anything that could interfere with the positioning of his hands on the ball. A hair’s breadth difference could wreak havoc with his service toss, ‘specially now he’d got the jump float under control.

But he stayed where he was, mind a blank except for the sight of Osamu’s red infused face screaming so loud it was as if he lived there and was clawing to burst out.

They were unmarked, unharmed, scratch and bruise free. As their brawls went it was nothing. He hugged his knees to his chest.

_So why does it hurt so much?_

His mum knocked on the door. “Atsumu, you better be doing your homework.”

“I am,” he lied.

“If I get another call from the school …” She trailed off, the huff in her voice enough of a warning. “Where’s your brother?”

“I dunno.” He shrugged even though she couldn’t see him.

“Fighting again?”

He heard the exasperation in her voice and something inside of him swirled and bubbled, ‘cuz this time it weren’t his fault. This time ‘Samu was wrong, an’ all he’d been tryin’ to do was make him see sense.

“Well, what was it about?”

_How did I not know?_

“Nuthin’.” He took a breath. “No fight. He went t’ Rin’s.”

“Oh.” He could see the shape of her as she lingered on the other side of the door. “Granny came by today. She made mochi for you.”

_What am I? Five?_ He frowned, even as his mouth watered.

“I’ll have some later.”

He should do his homework. His mum wasn’t exaggerating when she said the school would call her.

He should also clip his hangnail instead of worrying at with his teeth.

But as he experienced the first nip of pain as his teeth pulled at his skin, he refuted the warning and pulled harder, tearing away until at last he tasted copper.

_Oh._

Staring at his thumb, Atsumu watched the first bead of blood and pressed harder with his finger, wondering, almost inconsequentially, how big the drop would get before it broke its surface and turned into a trickle. Or a stream.

_What if I hit an artery?_ he wondered idly. _Are there arteries in my thumb?_

Kita-san would know. (Aran-san would too, but he’d also smack him around the head for not having the knowledge.)

A little bored now, he sucked on his thumb, then reached for his bag. Maths awaited, and the threat from the Maths’ teacher, who had no fear or reverence for Atsumu’s status on the team, meant he had to complete it tonight or be thrown in both lunch time and after school detention. And he had to finish it properly, not half-ass it as usual.

“I know when you’ve made the effort, Miya,” his sensei had warned, adding, ‘It’s not that you can’t do this, but that you won’t. And that attitude won’t get you far in this world.”

_What do fricking graphs and quadratic equations have to do with volleyball?_ he’d wanted to snap. But he’d nodded dumbly instead, accepting he was on his last chance.

He shouldn’t have bitten the hangnail. He never did it. Not since readin’ an article about Setters takin’ care of their hands, and Kita-san mentioning a boy he’d known who got an infection in his nail, just before he’d presented him with a pair of clippers.

Blood oozed, leeching into the ridges of his thumbprint and leaving a pretty mess of red on the graph paper.

He heard rather than saw the door slide open.

“I’m doin’ it, all right!” he snarled at his mum.

“I c’n see that,” muttered someone back. Someone who sounded a little like him, but with less anger, more defences, and no petulance.

“Granny made mochi,” Osamu continued, and stepping closer, he slid a tray on the desk. “An, I bought ya bubble tea.”

Conciliation? That was unusual.

“Thanks,” he muttered, still not turning round.

“Mum thought I was at Rin’s.”

“Did she?”

“You didn’t tell her we’d been fightin’ then?”

“What’s the point? You’ve made yer decision.”

“Yeah.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Osamu’s foot tucked under his knee, and heard a slurp as he sucked on his straw.

“D’you mind? I’m trynna work here,” he complained, spinning round on his chair.

Osamu cocked his head to the side. “What have you done to your thumb?”

“What’s it to you?”

“It’s bleedin’!”

“It’s nuthin’. I chewed it.”

“But… you never … you haven’t…” Osamu blinked at him. “Yer always givin’ me grief about bitin’ my nails.”

“Cuz it’s dumb and avoidable,” Atsumu retorted.

“Least I don’t make my fingers bleed.”

“It’s a thumb.” He scowled. “Couldn’t find my clippers. Now leave me alone so I c’n finish this shitty graph.”

“Want a hand? I did that last Monday.”

“No, I wanna get a good mark.”

Osamu snorted, then leant back against the wall, stretched out his legs and drank some more of his drink.

“Shouldn’t you be cookin’ or somethin’?” Atsumu snarled. “Thought you needed the practise!”

“Granny’s mochi really are the best, doncha think?” he said, voice thick as he chewed.

Unable to resist, Atsumu at last helped himself to one, let the sweetness stick to his teeth, licking his lips as he felt the sugar buoy him up. “I guess,” he said, mollified.

“This is what I want t’ do,” Osamu admitted. “Make food that puts people in a good mood.”

He sipped his drink. His favourite - honeydew, and with enough boba for him to suck up his straw and chew long past him finishing the actual drink. “An’ you need to give up volleyball t’ do that,” he mumbled.

Osamu let out a sigh. He shuffled away from the wall and closer to Atsumu. Staring up at him, he took his injured hand in his and pulled out a (hopefully) clean tissue from his pocket.

“Everythin’s a struggle with us, ‘Tsumu,” he sighed, winding the tissue around his thumb. “Everythin’. An’ I’d like it not to be.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
